engsoc@watale.waterloo.edu (Engineering Society, CPH 1327, x2323) (04/10/89)
For those of you who did not read my previous message: 'Apple Laptop - REALITY', I am trying to initiate discussion about Apple's forthcoming Laptop Mac. If you have heard rumors or wish to talk about this initial summer offering, PLEASE reply to the 'REALITY' message. This message is to discuss, or better - dream about what the second and third generation Laptop's will be like. Please don't get bogged down in the "You can't do that" syndrome. It was just over 5 years ago when we were offered the original 128k Mac - now we have the IIcx, and are close to version 7 of the OS. That is but a small amount of progress compared to what we'll see in the next five years - history has show us that the computer industry's growth is exponential in nature. Go wild with this message string - no rules, except for one: The thing still has to be 'useful'. That is, is will be more than a collection of neet-o hardware - people will buy it and use it, business, home, or school. (Someone can start a 'Apple Laptop - PLAYTHINGS FOR THE MIND' if you wish to break this 'rule'!!) Ok, 'nuff said. Here's my fairly conservative guess of the Mac Laptop for the early 90's: Neet-o hardware: 68040 50MHz CPU AM29000 RISC Quickdraw/Postscript co-processor 80396 33MHz CPU for 'OS/2 in a window' (sorry, necessary reality - it'll still be around) 16 Meg. RAM + 4 Meg. Video RAM 1 Gig. Optical local storage: removable, read/write Cellular Phone/Modem/FAX/Wireless LAN 1024x1024, 8-bit color display (paper thin, foldable) Wireless links to full size keyboards, monitors, etc. Fusion power supply (...to make up for the OS/2 'reality') ~10 pounds Software side: Multitasking/Multiprocessor Operating system. User interface same look and feel as today Personal time/data managers will be very integral to the hardware and OS Interprocess communication will allow application programs to be 'snapped-together' by users to make custom, integrated application programs Obviously, the full size 'Big Brothers' of this laptop will have similar features, but their use will be mainly as departmental servers and communicaion gateways. The laptop format will become the standard computing platform for most people - mainly because of the time/data management features. The above system is just a collection of ideas based on the current trends in todays technology. I have just made exponential extrapolations. Please share with me your ideas, expand on my platform, take a totally different direction, whatever. Some additional food for thought: Last year Apple sponsored a contest for "Personal Computing in the Year 2000". The June 1988 _Communications to the ACM_ (vol. 31, no. 6, pg 638) has a report on the contest and the winning entry from U of Illinois. If you have not read it, please do - there are some very novel ideas in their machine (dubbed "TABLET"). Looking forward to the responses! Jay Gibson #include "profound_signature.h"